Does anyone disagree with the study based on scientific principles?
At The Questionable Authority, blogger Mike Dunford points out some possible bias that might have led the researchers to numbers higher than they should be. First, he argues that the Lancet study used population estimates obtained by a joint Iraqi/UN population study, rather than those of the Iraqi Ministry of Health, which the same authors had used two years earlier. Dunford points out that if the total population (estimated to be approximately 27 million people) is invalid, then so is the estimate of 650,000. This is certainly true, but there is no reason to suspect that these organizations would be biased towards reporting a larger population than thereactually is. Dunford seems to imply that there are vying estimates out there, but he only cites information from 18 months earlier. If Dunford is correct that the population has been overestimated by as much as 11 percent, then the excess deaths should actually be estimated at about 580,000 instead of 650,000. Dunford also points out
